


Of Fleeting Smiles and Sincere Wishes

by Teddy0414



Category: The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 13:27:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19006729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teddy0414/pseuds/Teddy0414
Summary: "I thought I told you to choose a player you could tolerate losing," Hector Bowen had once said. "You always grow too attached to your students. Unfortunate how few of them ever realize that."In which Alexander H- pays his favorite student a visit.





	Of Fleeting Smiles and Sincere Wishes

The girl in the ticket booth does not recognize the man in the grey suit when he pays his admission in full. He purchases a bag of chocolate mice from the courtyard, and pockets them as he enters his first tent of the night: the illusionist’s.

Winston Murray does not acknowledge him, save for the tiniest tip of his silken black hat at the end of his performance. The man in the grey suit cannot help but admire the thoughtful details of each illusion, despite his distaste for such displays. It is clear to him that Winston Murray has been taught well. This does not surprise him.

He visits the Ice Garden next, and although he thinks that he catches the slightest glimpse of Miss Bowen’s gown, and the softest whisper of her laugh, there is no sign of his student. He can feel traces of the boy’s power in the very essence of this tent, but he does not linger.

He visits the Pool of Tears next, but not even one of the boy’s stones can make more than the smallest fraction of his burdens feel lighter. He ignores the tents that were not made by his student or Miss Bowen, but when he gets no answer from his student in the Labyrinth, the Carousel, the Cloud Maze, or the Stargazer, he finally pushes aside the beads that mark the entrance to the fortune teller’s tent.

Penelope Murray smiles as if she has been expecting him all evening. She has no tarot before her, only a sprinkle of silver stars on a low black table. “You should turn left when you leave the tent,” she says. “Unless there’s something else in the future that you want to know about.”

The man in the grey suit gives her one of his rare, fleeting smiles. “There aren’t a lot of other things in the future that matter to me. Thank you, Miss Murray. Give my regards to your brother, he has quite a sufficient eye for detail.”

She simply nods, eyes sparkling with some sort of foreknowledge beneath her white veil. She asks for no payment, but he leaves her the bag of chocolate mice.

The path to the left seems to loop back to the courtyard, and the man in the grey suit is almost certain that Miss Murray may have been wrong in her guidance when he sees the sign to an almost hidden tent. The Wishing Tree, the sign says, where others’ dreams ignite your own.

The candles on the tree inside twinkle, and each wish glows like the tiniest of stars. The man in the grey suit lifts an unlit candle from the shelves, but then hesitates. What is someone like him to wish for?

“Go on.” The voice is barely there, but he can recognize the sound of his students anywhere. He turns, and there stands the boy: his dark hair messy without the bowler hat and grey-green eyes just as sharp and observant as they had been the day the man in the grey suit had first seen him in that dirty London orphanage. “There has to be something even you want.”

“Perhaps.” Not for himself, though. He has lived a life long enough that he can remember times when he had everything, and times when he had nothing. But perhaps wishes didn’t have to be selfish. He lifts the candle in his hand and as he places it on the tree, he wishes the boy—and all the other students of his that still survive—whatever semblance of happiness can be found in their shadow worlds.

Silence has never been an issue for the man before, he is used to not saying a word to people for days on end. But now, something in the air begs for a conversation. So, he obliges. “You’ve been teaching the Murray boy well.”

“He’s a quick study,” says the boy. “But you’re not here for him, or for the circus. So why are you here?”

“What Miss Bowen accomplished with you both was an impressive feat, I wanted to see the results for myself.” It was the best way he knew to say why he had really come. To make sure he was alright, and to see if what Winston Murray had said about the boy no longer blaming him was true.

The boy gestures to himself with a flourish. “Well, you can see that Widget wasn’t lying.” A pause, the softest of breaths the only sound in the empty tent. “I wouldn’t have found her without you.”

The man offers one of his rare, fleeting smiles, though they seem to not be so rare tonight. He had thought the girl a distraction, the challenge a tragedy. “You were a good student, boy. Perhaps the best I ever taught.”

“Marco,” the boy corrects. “My name is Marco Alisdair. I thought Alisdair sounded similar enough to Alexander when I chose it.”

This draws out a chuckle from the man, a sound that he knows was almost unheard of all through the boy’s childhood. “Marco.” He says the name slowly, familiarizing himself with it. “Perhaps I can return next year, when the circus returns to London in the autumn?”

The boy—Marco—looks thoroughly delighted, though the man cannot tell if it is his laughter or the prospect of a visit that is the cause.

“I will be waiting,” Marco says, and then he is gone.

All that remains is the lingering whisper of his voice, and the memory of his smile. And the man in the grey suit begins to wonder if he might remember how to care again in what is left of his life.


End file.
